The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-08-05
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
4 Discourse on the Pulpit Minis
tration OF the Future.

= O18COUf00 On 600 xUlp16 010lDe
tration Of the Future.
What the Prsaching. Tsaehing aud n.
hOrtation Must Ne h Order %
Reach All the Psopls-Poias and
Brevity 20 - Commended.
Rev. r Dewitt Talmage, in . recent
sermon at ''The Hamptons," took for his
subject: preaching, Teaching and Ex-
hortation." illustrating It from the fol.
lowing text:
Or ministry, let 40 wait on our ministering |;
or he that teacheth on teaching: or he that ex-
hortheth, on exhortation. xii. "a
Before the world is converted the style
Of religious discourse will have to DO con.
verted. You might as we'll go into the
modern Sedan or Gettysburg with bows
and arrows insteai Of rid 3 and Bomb
shells and parks Of artillery, rs to expect
to conquer this world for God by the old
styles Of exhortation and sermonology.
Jonathan Edw: ris preached tho sermons
most adapted to the age in which he
lived, but il those sermons Were preached
now they would divide the audience into
classes, those sound asleep and those
wanting to 60 home.
But there is q religious discourse Of the
future-who will preach it have no idea;
In what rart OF the earth it will be born
have nc idea; in which denominations
OF Christians it will be delivered I can
not guess. That discourse or exhortation
NAV be born in the country meeting
house on the banks Of the St Lawrence,
or the Oregon, or the Ohio. or the Tom
bigbee, or the Alabama. The person who
shall deliver it may at this moment te in
a cradle under the shadow of the
Sierra Nevadas, or in New
England farm house, or amid
the rice-fieljs Of Southern Savan-
mas. Or this moment there may be some
young man in some of our theological
in the Junior or middle or
senior class, shaping that weapon of
power. Or there NAV be coming some
1ew baptism Of the Holy Ghost on the
churches, SO that some OF MS who now
stand in the watchtowers Of Zion, waking
to realization Of our present ineficiency,
may preach it ourselves. That coming
discourse or exhortation may not be fifty
years on. And let Us pray God that its
arrival may be hastcned, while announce
to you what think will DO tho chief
characteristics Of that discourse or ex.
hortation when It does arrive, and want
to make the rem ,rks OF the morning APP
propriate and suggestive to all classes Of
Christian workers.
First Of all, remark that the future re-
liRious discourse wilt be full Of living
Christ in radistinction to didactic
A discourse may be full
OF Christ though hardly mention ing his
name, and sermon may be empty OF
Christ while every sentence is repititious
Of his titles The world wants living
Christ, not Christ standing at the head of
a formal system Of theology, but Christ
who means pardon and sympathy and
and brotherhood and life and
heaven. A poor mans Christ. A rich
mans Christ. An overworked mans
Christ. An invalid's Christ. An artisans
Christ An every mans Christ
A symmetrical and fiue- worked system
Of theology is well enough tor theological
but it has no more business In q
pulpit than have the technical phrases Of
an anatomist or psychologist or phv.
stefan In the sick room Of patient. The
world wants help. immediate AMI world.
uplifting, and it will come through dis
In which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
possession of It, filling It as
full OF light as is this MONDAY armament
That sermon or exhortation Of the future
will not deal with men in the threadbarc
of Jesus Christ. In that
coming address there will bs instances of
vicarious suffering taken right out of
everyday life, for there is not day some
body is not dying for others. As the
physician saving his diph,heritic patient
by sacrif ing his own life; as the ship
captain going down with his vessel while
he is getting his passengers into the life
boat; as the fireman consuming in the
burning building while he is taking O
child out of a forth-story window; as in
summer the strong swimmer OF East
or Lake George, himself persisted trying
to rescue the drowning; as the news
paper boy one summer, supporting his
mother for some years, his invalid mother,
when offered bv a gentleman fifty cents
and rushed up in his anxiety TO deliver it,
train, and lay on the grass with only
strength enough to say:
''Oh, what will become Of my poor sick
mother nowr'
V.carious suffering. The world Is full
Of it. An engineer said to me ON q loco
motive in Dakota:
I'VE men seem to be coming to better
appreciation than we used to. Did you
see that account the other day Of an en-
gineer who, to save his passeng gers, stuck
to his place, and when he was found dead
in the locomotive, which was upsid down,
be was found still smiling. his hand on
the air. brakew
And as the engineer said it to me, he
put his hand on the air.brake to illustrate
his meaning, and looked at him and
thought:
"You would be Just as much Of hero
in the same crisis"
Oh, in that religious discourse Of the
future there will be living Illustrations
saken out from everyday life Of vicarious
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. that will bring to
mind the ghastlier sacrifice of Him who,
n the higa places of the field, on the
cross fought our battles. and wept our
grief, and endured our struggle, and died
our death.
A German sculptor made an image of
Christ, and he asked his little child, two
7ears old, who it was, and she said:
THAT must be some very great man"
The sculptor was displ,ased with the
so he got another block Of
marble, and chiseied away on it two or
.hree years, and then he brought in his
title child, four or i've years Of age, and
le said to her:
"Who do you think that is.''
She said: ''That must be the one who
ook little children in his arms and
blessed them.'
Then the sculptor was satisfied. Oh,
ny friends, what the world wants is not
! cold Christ, not an intellectual Christ,
rot a severely magisterial Christ; but a